Kill Bill Killian’s Assault on Freedom of Speech

As I noted in my last column, “The Stinking Badges of Our Federales” (June 2nd), the Department of Justice is again on the attack against freedom of speech. The occasion for this guerilla attack is a talk to be given by United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee Bill Killian during an event sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.

His talk will be about civil rights restrictions on speech in the “social media” as it applies to Muslims – that is, speech that criticizes Muslims and Islam, not speech by Muslims that could be defined as “bigoted” or “hateful” – and there is far, far more of that than there is of the occasional nose-thumbing of Muslims and Islam). It will be about “inflammatory speech,” which could mean anything, even a scholarly disquisition on the origins and practice of Islam. Judicial Watch reports that the event, called “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society,” will feature the region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.

The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”

So, civil rights laws will be “interpreted” to identify “harmful” statements made on Face Book and other social media and help the DOJ and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to lodge suits against anyone expressing his freedom of speech if it offends Muslims and Islam.

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is on the warpath and is urging readers near and far to assemble in Manchester, Tennessee to vigorously demonstrate opposition to Killian’s trial balloon of selective censorship in favor of Muslims and Islam.

You must stand up. Now. No one is going to do this for you. Only YOU can save you.

I strongly urge every Atlas reader, twitter and Facebook friend who can be in Tennessee to join us in a major demonstration for free speech on June 4th at 5:30pm Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, 147 Hospitality Blvd, in Manchester, Tennessee. Change your plans, get off from work — go. Tweet it, Facebook share, get the word out.

AFDI, SIOA, and other major organizations will be rallying for free speech. On June 4th, an event titled “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society” will be held from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, 147 Hospitality Blvd, in Manchester, Tennessee. Speakers for the event are Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the FBI special agent who runs the Knoxville office.

Instead of my explaining the importance and ramifications of a successful trial balloon, here are Geller’s own words about the stealthy attempts to pare away layers of our First Amendment protections:

How is this any different than Islamic law in, say, Turkey (Obama’s favorite and most trusted ally)? In October, 43-year-old Fazil Say went on trial in Turkey for “denigrating” Islam for a series of tweets earlier that year. In one of his messages he had retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám, in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy. This is the same thing.

If the DOJ pursued the vicious, offensive, racist, antisemitic tweets directed at me (and others) by Muslims and leftists, they would be pursuing little else. But they wouldn’t and they shouldn’t.

Note to the Justice Department — we will fight you on this every step of the way. We will drag your dhimmi asses all the way to the Supreme Court. This is Sharia enforcement, and we are not going to stand for it.

In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights.

The move comes a few years after the administration became the first in history to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them. In the unprecedented event, Attorney General Eric Holder assured a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations that the “us versus them” environment created by the U.S. government, law enforcement agents and fellow citizens is unacceptable and inconsistent with what America is all about.

“Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build and strengthen our nation,” Holder said after expressing that he is “grateful” to have Muslims as a partner in promoting tolerance, ensuring public safety and protecting civil rights. He also vowed to strengthen “crucial dialogue” between Muslim and Arab-American communities and law enforcement.

Evidently that was a precursor of sorts for an upcoming Tennessee event (“Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society”) that will feature the region’s top DOJ official, who serves as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and an FBI representative. The goal is to increase awareness and understanding that American Muslims are not the terrorists some have made them out to be in social media and other circles, according to a local newspaper report. The June 4 powwow is sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee.

The area’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Killian, will address a topic that most Americans are likely unfamiliar with, even those well versed on the Constitution; that federal civil rights laws can actually be violated by those who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media. “This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian says in the local news story. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.”

The DOJ political appointee adds in the article that the upcoming presentation will also focus on Muslim culture with a special emphasis on the fact that the religion is no different from others, even though some in the faith have committed terrorist acts, Christians have done the same. As an example he offers that the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. prior to 9/11 was committed by American Christians in Oklahoma City. He also mentioned the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting last year in which another Christian, an American white supremacist, fatally shot six people and wounded four others.

“Some of the finest people I’ve met are Muslims,” Killian said, adding later: “We want to inform everybody about what the law is, but more importantly, we want to provide what the law means to Muslims, Hindus and every other religion in the country. It’s why we came here in the first place. In England, they were using Christianity to further their power in government. That’s why the First Amendment is there.”

Over the years the Obama administration has embarked on a fervent crusade to befriend Muslims by creating a variety of outreach programs at a number of key federal agencies. For instance the nation’s Homeland Security covertly met with a group of extremist Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations to discuss national security matters and the State Department sent a controversial, anti-America Imam (Feisal Abdul Rauf) to the Middle East to foster greater understanding and outreach among Muslim majority communities.

The Obama Administration has also hired a special Homeland Security adviser (Mohamed Elibiary) who openly supports a radical Islamist theologian and renowned jihadist ideologue and a special Islam envoy that condemns U.S. prosecutions of terrorists as “politically motivated persecutions” and has close ties to radical extremist groups.

The president has even ordered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to shift its mission from space exploration to Muslim diplomacy and the government started a special service that delivers halal meals, prepared according to Islamic law, to home-bound seniors in Detroit. Who could forget Hillary Clinton’s special order allowing the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties have long banned them from the U.S.?

About Edward Cline

Edward Cline is a novelist who has written on the revolutionary war period. He is author of the Sparrowhawk series of novels set in England and Virginia in the Revolutionary period, the detective novel First Prize, the suspense novel Whisper the Guns, and of numerous published articles, book reviews and essays.

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